I tried fixing it so it read a bit better, kintu this is hopeless - who the hell edited this???

Quote:

If you have flown Biman of late, you are likely to notice a few things. Your flight, most probably, had departed on time. The on-flight service was better.
And you might have a surprise welcome on arrival at Dhaka by the top Biman man.

Biman, in the last one month, seems to be trying to fly straight from the rudderless flight that had pushed the national airlines in the red.

It has got a new managing director, the first foreign chief executive Kevin John Steele, who has been trying all the tricks to change Biman.

First, Kevin is trying to make planes take off on time. The success is quite high, considering he has been in charge for less than a month. In one week in April, 2012, on-time flight departure was only 27 percent. In the last week beginning April 14, 41 percent flights departed on time.

“This is a bit of an improvement, but this is still nothing like acceptable, nothing like major airlines, so I want to get this over 80 percent before the end of this year,” Kevin says. “One big thing is the average delay has dropped a lot more. Last year, with no standby aircraft, we had some delays of over 12 hours.”

Kevin has gone for simple solutions to bring about this improvement. He has kept the old DC-10 aircraft standby. In case any aircraft develops technical glitch, the DC-10 rushes to lift passengers.

A lot of delays occur because of passenger handling at the immigration and check-in.
So, Biman has worked back a schedule from the time departure and is sticking to it. It is arranging quicker passing of passengers on priority basis.

Biman has given measurable targets to all staff, which includes punctuality.
“This has improved services but it is not good enough. I want British Airways results,” says Kevin, who once served as General Manager of British Airways.

Kevin’s biggest challenge and Biman’s, however, is bringing the airlines from the red to the black. Last year, it suffered a loss of $75 million.

Kevin has identified about 20 steps, some of them quite simple, to save cost. For example, one step is to cut the number of passengers on waiting list. Biman used to allow up to 50 passengers on waiting list. But to book each ticket, the airlines has to pay $7 to a company for using its “global distribution system” (GDS).

What Kevin did is cutting the waiting list from 50 to 15 passengers. Thus Biman can save $245 on GDS charge every flight. For the whole year, it means saving $1.5 million a year.
Another simple step is to save on fuel.
In winter, weather over Dhaka and Chittagong often remains foggy. This is why each flight has to carry extra fuel so that it could divert to Yangon in case of poor visibility.
For this every flight had to carry excess fuel weighing 1,000kg. This extra fuel costs money. Moreover, to carry this 1,000kg extra load, each flight has to burn about 200kg equivalent of fuel.
So Kevin has equipped the Sylhet airport with fuel trucks so that aircraft can land in Sylhet instead of Yangon in case of foggy weather.
This would save another $2 million a year.
Kevin has also planned a revenue management system. This would help give priority to passengers on priority routes.

For example, fare from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah is $900 while from Dhaka to Jeddah it is $850. So flying passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah is not profitable.

When the new revenue management system will be in place, Dhaka-Jeddah passengers will get priority. Biman can save $20 million from this.

Fuel efficient aircraft is a key to cutting cost. Biman will float tenders for two Boeing 777s in August to take a lease on them for five years.

Kevin said Biman has Boeing 777s, 737-800s and Airbus A310s but the Airbus is fuel inefficient and he would phase them out in two years.

“We have eight aircraft now. I am looking at 16 in two years,” Kevin adds.
Biman will also introduce e-customers’ feedback and rating of services. Staff who can surpass their targets will get extra bonuses.

“I am looking at Biman not from domestic perspective but from international viewpoint,” Kevin says. “In one year, Biman will do 95 percent of what British Airways or Etihad has been doing.”

The end point — “Biman is looking at $70 million in savings and a comeback to black.

its a good start, management is indeed everything. The new CEO's small steps stand out as his predecessors literally gave a sh** about Biman and absolutely had no intention of making Biman successful.

Although honestly I am surprised by his appointment. Why get a bideshi to run the show and interfere in the corruption syndicate? ekhon khali khali hajj flight er jonno aircraft lease er shomoy ganjam korbe....

Biman is blessed with the size of the market it serves. Even if it becomes the first airline to get a zero star from Skytrax, flights to the middle east, Kolkata, London, Rome, Bangkok, KL etc will always be full. Making Biman profitable is just matter of intent....

I was thinking that it's a shame that common sense business management thinking needed to be imported from abroad. Don't we have any home grown executives with basic business sense? Of course, we do but those that are not tainted by corruption will be paralysed by the corrupt coterie of staff, unions, and their political godfathers. Which is an even worse shame.

But I see two silver linings. Kevin himself and the fact that someone somewhere saw the light and wanted a change and pushed through his hire. I want to know who he/she is?

Originally Posted by Zunaid
I was thinking that it's a shame that common sense business management thinking needed to be imported from abroad. Don't we have any home grown executives with basic business sense? Of course, we do but those that are not tainted by corruption will be paralysed by the corrupt coterie of staff, unions, and their political godfathers. Which is an even worse shame.

But I see two silver linings. Kevin himself and the fact that someone somewhere saw the light and wanted a change and pushed through his hire. I want to know who he/she is?

Good point, this is truly refreshing. I think it is due to the fact that Biman was about to collapse, so survival instinct kicked in.

Just to give an example of how ****ed up the way Biman was run, about a year ago when they were looking to replace the directors/MD, the people in charge were selling the director position to people they know and are willing to pay the right amount. One of my family member, who has good connection within the current government but knows jack-**** about running an airlines was offered a director position. The incentive was that you could make insane amount of money during Hajj flights (not sure how that works). Obviously it didn't work out.

I think they should do criminal investigations on previous admins and how they got appointed.

Originally Posted by Blah
Just to give an example of how ****ed up the way Biman was run, about a year ago when they were looking to replace the directors/MD, the people in charge were selling the director position to people they know and are willing to pay the right amount. One of my family member, who has good connection within the current government but knows jack-**** about running an airlines was offered a director position. The incentive was that you could make insane amount of money during Hajj flights (not sure how that works). Obviously it didn't work out.

I think they should do criminal investigations on previous admins and how they got appointed.

Everything in Bangladesh works that way. No surprises there. Rather the surprise is in the rare chance something works properly.

He's only held the post for a month, so we need to be wary of getting too excited too quickly. Besides incompetent management, administration and the like, as well as political interference, he will also have to deal with the powerful 'baggage handlers', 'airport ground staff', 'customs', etc. lobbies, which are also massively corrupt. (There was a report in a Bangla newspaper some weeks back on how many of these position holders made more per month than Directors of Biman.) Let's see if he can survive in such an environment or whether he'll run off like our foreign cricket coaches when the going gets tough.

Starting from 1992, Hong Kong had been in Biman's network until the last September when the national flag carrier had to suspend its flights to Hong Kong in the wake of an acute shortage of aircraft.

The long-awaited inaugural flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines on Dhaka Hong Kong sector BG 078 took off today thus fulfilling the carrier's earlier commitment for resuming the operations within the shortest possible time, a Biman press release said here today."

I don't know whether any such rule is in place or will be anytime soon, but I think it should be made mandatory that anyone who is flying on Govt's (govt/semi govt institutes) money MUST fly Biman.

First priority, Biman.
Second, if no Biman on the complete route, code share.
Third, if no Biman, other local airlines.
Fourth, if nothing, ONLY then foreign airlines.

It should start from President,PM, Ministers, Bureaucrats, Govt officials, basically anyone whose tickets are paid by Govt. Should also include national team like cricket team.
In return, Biman can give a 10% discount for this guaranteed target market.
This would:

a) Reduce govt expenditure
b) help keep money to ourselves
c) increase further revenue for Biman
d) when top brasses start to fly regularly, Biman's customer service would automatically improve.

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Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest [Al-Qur'an,13:28]

I think the government should get out of the business of business. Privatize the damn thing - if it is to go bankrupt let it die. There is enough demand that equivalently priced but better commercial airliners will take it's place.

I hate getting on planes with so many other Bangalis. There is always some kind of confrontation with two bangalis guys that don't even know each other. It's always about some guy's wife/gf or about luggage compartments. It becomes heated and then some hujur steps in to save the day.

If everyone in the world was a hujur then the world would be a peaceful place.

Originally Posted by BengaliPagol
You obviously haven't flown from Dubai to Dhaka.

This is quite true.

Also have seen my Bengali brothers taking out their cell phone to click pics of the air hostess. And begin giving orders and treating cabin crew as slaves is a given. Was surprised at first....now not so much.

Last week traveled Dubai - Dhaka on Emirates. So many muslim Bangladeshis ordering Beer . Yeh its their life and all that but for me that was a shock. Haven't seen it upfront ever in my life. Guy sitting next to me drank 5 beers. 5. And then started cracking loud 'jokes' that just wasn't funny. Emirates cabin crew are generous though!

__________________
"Tufnell! Can I borrow your brain? I'm building an idiot" - Australian fan to England spinner Phil Tufnell

^ i feel you bro. There might be fine looking air hostesses on Emirates but why take pictures of them?

About Bangalis drinking beer well i've lived with it throughout my whole life (school, uni, on board flights etc.). Heck it's pretty common in Bangladesh now. I feel sorry for the Hujurs on board a plane from Dubai to Dhaka as they are watching arabic readings on their tv sets everyone around them are getting drunk.